The Ashes of Worlds - Kevin J. Anderson [226]
Sarein let out a cold laugh. “Capture? Trust me, Basil has something harsher in mind for us.”
Robb went to the comm station and tried to work the controls, to no avail. With the exception of life support, even the most basic systems were dead. “Doesn’t matter. We can’t transmit a message. We’re bound and gagged.”
Estarra’s eyes flashed as she stared at the darkened screen, as if willing it to display the threatening ships, the stars and planets. But it remained blank. The silence seemed more ominous than any overt threat.
Captain Kett came up beside the Queen, grinning.
“What is it?” Estarra asked. “If you have an idea — ”
“That guillotine code may have shut down all of your fancy EDF systems, but it couldn’t do a damned thing to the Blind Faith,” she said. She looked at Robb. “I assume your launching bays have manual backup systems for opening the space doors? Good. BeBob and I can take you right in front of the Goliath, up close and personal. We’ll get the message across.”
Estarra smiled. “Then we’d better make it convincing.”
* * *
157
Jess Tamblyn
As Jess and Cesca raced down to the surface, the fiery elementals that gathered over the ruins of Mijistra seemed weak, desperate, disorganized. As their wental ship bulldozed through the scattering fireballs, they both could see through the flames to the flashing conflict on the ground, where the Mage-Imperator and a group of Ildirans faced a fiery man.
“Rusa’h is like us.” Jess increased their speed. “We’ve got to stop him.”
“No, not like us. The faeros burned away the soul of the person he once was,” Cesca said. “The wentals in us may always set us apart from other humans, but we’re still who we were inside.”
Jess brought the water-globule ship down fast, like the first heavy drop before a drenching downpour. As the liquid bubble touched the ground near the embattled Ildirans, the surface tension dissolved, like a burst water balloon, and its wental contents flooded out. He and Cesca stepped away from the soupy mud at their feet.
The Mage-Imperator and his companions had begun to succumb to the battering heat. “You are cut off from the thism, Rusa’h,” shouted the Mage-Imperator. “I will not allow your faeros to prey upon my people again.”
In the sky, most of the fiery shapes had flown away, leaving Rusa’h alone. But he was not weak.
Jess and Cesca approached the faeros incarnate, their bodies covered with a glistening film of water, and Rusa’h sensed their power. When he turned, his body seemed to swell, and his face showed an incredible struggle taking place within him.
“This is my Empire!” Like a wildfire let loose, Rusa’h hurled gouts of flame from his hands.
Jess intercepted the inferno, deflecting it from the weary Ildirans. Cesca joined her power to his; they had to extinguish this spark that spread destructive fire, consuming ships and cities and planets and people. They had to control the flames and stop the faeros from burning all the worlds in the Spiral Arm.
Showing no restraint, Rusa’h unleashed his furious strength, making Jess and Cesca stagger backward. The hard ground around them began to melt.
Mist sprang from Jess’s pores like sweat, creating a powerful living fog. Cesca raised her hands, and steam flashed against the barrage of fire. They both drew deeply from the wentals within them, struggling against the fierce onslaught, staggering a step backward. Seeing them falter, Rusa’h hurled even more fire at them.
The two pushed back, wrapping cool wental vapors like thick ropes around the faeros incarnate. Jess surrendered more and more of his inner reservoir of wental strength. The air burned around him, and he fought back until he was at the point of collapse, but he did not relent.
The Mage-Imperator and the linked Ildirans behind their shield drained away some power from the faeros incarnate, contributing to the fight.
Jora’h lashed out at his brother. “Come back to me, Rusa’h! No matter what you have done, I know an Ildiran heart still beats within you. If you